La Vendée eBook

“No, Henri, I also will return home. Charette
is right. We should but waste our time in Paris,
and be in danger. We shall probably be in safety
in Poitou.”

“Perhaps not in safety,” said Henri.
“We may, I trust, soon be in action.”

“How in action?” said Fleuriot. “What
do you intend to do?”

“To follow any one who will lead me to assist
in restoring the King to his throne,” replied
Henri. “Let us, at any rate, retire to our
provinces; and be assured that the National Assembly
will soon hear of us.”

The club was broken up; the young friends met no more
in the Rue Vivienne. Within a week from the 10th
of August, the denizens of the municipality had searched
the rooms for any relics which might be discovered
there indicatory of a feeling inimical to the Republic;
their residences also were searched, and there were
orders at the barriers that they should not pass out;
but the future Vendean leaders had too quickly appreciated
the signs of the time; they had gone before the revolutionary
tribunal had had time to form itself. They were
gone, and their names for a season were forgotten
in Paris; but Henri Rochejaquelin was right—­before
long, the National Assembly did hear of them; before
twelve months had passed, they were more feared by
the Republic, than the allied forces of England, Austria,
and Prussia.

CHAPTER II

ST. FLORENT

Nothing occurred in the provinces, subsequently called
La Vendee, during the autumn or winter of 1792 of
sufficient notice to claim a place in history, but
during that time the feelings which afterwards occasioned
the revolt in that country, were every day becoming
more ardent. The people obstinately refused to
attend the churches to which the constitutional clergy
had been appointed; indeed, these pastors had found
it all but impossible to live in the parishes assigned
to them; no one would take them as tenants; no servants
would live with them; the bakers and grocers would
not deal with them; the tailors would not make their
clothes for them, nor the shoemakers shoes. During
the week they were debarred from all worldly commerce,
and on Sundays they performed their religious ceremonies
between empty walls.

The banished priests, on the other hand, who were
strictly forbidden to perform any of the sacerdotal
duties, continued among the trees and rocks to collect
their own congregations undiminished in number, and
much more than ordinarily zealous, in their religious
duties; and with the licence which such sylvan chapels
were found to foster, denunciations against the Republic,
and prayers for the speedy restoration of the monarchy,
were mingled with the sacred observances.